I suspect Apple has more tricks up its sleeve than that however. Swift and Cyclone were two tocks in a row by Intel's definition, a third in 3 years would be unusual but not impossible (Intel sort of committed to doing the same with Saltwell/Silvermont/Airmont in 2012 - 2014).

Looking at Cyclone makes one thing very clear: the rest of the players in the ultra mobile CPU space didn't aim high enough. I wonder what happens next round.

This is one area where Apple really took everyone by surprise recently. When people talk about Apple losing its taste for disruption, they usually disregard the things they do not understand - such as hardcore processor design.

Alpha is perhaps not a very good example, since it got little traction in the marketplace (overall) and its associated development costs are one of the principal issues eventually leading to DEC's demise.

Luckily for Apple they mainly "innovate" with regards to marketing. Which in the end is the dept responsible for bringing home the bacon...